


Saturday Sun

by JustAnotherUnderstudy



Series: This Should Totally Be A Thing [36]
Category: James Bond (Craig movies)
Genre: Character Death Fix, F/M, Fix-It, Older Woman/Younger Man, Post-SPECTRE, Post-Skyfall
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-31
Updated: 2019-01-31
Packaged: 2019-10-19 23:49:19
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,354
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17611403
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/JustAnotherUnderstudy/pseuds/JustAnotherUnderstudy
Summary: The sun breaks through the London clouds, and James finds what he didn't know to look for.





	Saturday Sun

**Author's Note:**

> Here's a little story to make things happier after chapter 22 of Reveal. You can consider it a continuation of that portion of the drabble series if you like. :)
> 
> Inspired by a picture posted by Tayryn on her Judi Twitter account.
> 
> Title from the Vance Joy song.

_Oh, Saturday Sun_  
_I met someone_  
_Don't care what it costs_  
_No ray of sunlight's ever lost_

_Vance Joy, Saturday Sun_

She’s a ghost. She must be. James used to have these sorts of visions all the time in the first months after she died. It has been nearly two years, and the visions have subsided. Why now, he wonders.

The odd thing about this vision, though, is that it hasn’t evaporated. All the others were in the corner of his sight, he’d turn, and they’d be gone. This one is still there, hands folded into the arms of her white winter coat and squinting against the sudden burst of sun through the London clouds.

She mustn’t see him, he thinks, that’s why she hasn’t disappeared yet. He begins to slowly walk toward this apparition, hoping it doesn’t notice him. He just wants a closer look, he just wants one more chance to see her.

He is almost to her, walking along the ivy-covered wall she stands next to in the park. She is still not looking in his direction. His heart is pounding violently as he watches her breathe. Ghosts don’t breathe, do they?

James’ hands are shaking as he stops less than a meter from her. He reaches out and touches her arm. She gasps as she startles. He stares wide-eyed at what he can’t begin to wrap his mind around. She is real.

“James?”

She looks worried and scared, as if it is a bad thing for him to see her.

“M,” he barely whispers.

He raises his hand again to touch her face. When she doesn’t back away, he raises the other and together, his hands trace the lines on her face. These lines he’s only known with his eyes, but he had them memorized and could never forget them.

He’s almost afraid to say the words he is thinking, as if saying them aloud will turn this moment into nothing more than another dream.

“Yes, I’m real,” she says, as if she has read his thoughts.

Without further thought, he simply pulls her into his arms.

“I’ve missed you so much,” he tells her.

She has relaxed into his embrace and James is loathe to release her. He imagines carrying her away, where they can be alone. He just doesn’t want to lose her again.

“I suppose we should talk,” she says.

He smiles because he’d forgotten how good it was to have someone who knew him so well, she almost always knew what he was thinking. He’d been a fool back then to not return the favor. He won’t make that mistake this time.

Reluctantly, he releases her, but to his great surprise, and deep pleasure, she reaches out to take his hand in hers. The warmth of her touch travels up his arm and makes his heart beat even harder.

“I’m staying right across the way,” she says as she uses her head to indicate some building across from the park.

He nods and goes along with her silently. The world around him has faded away and she is all he sees. When they arrive at the flat, she opens the door with her key, and James is still solely focused on her. She leads him into the kitchen and has him sit at a small table with a brightly colored tablecloth, then she puts the pot on for tea and sits down across from him.

“You’re alive,” he says, finally, but he holds his breath, waiting for the scene to turn to smoke before him.

But she only smiles and nods.

“I’m sorry you couldn’t be told,” she said. “We were worried there were more problems than just Silva.”

James knows that by we, M probably means her replacement, possibly Tanner, and others who were privy to this knowledge denied him. Instead of being angry, though, he just shakes his head. She is alive, he won’t waste any more time on anger like he did in Turkey.

“I knew that if you knew, I wouldn’t be able to keep you away,” she said. “And that would not have been good for you.”

“None of that matters,” he assures her. “I’m just so happy to see you now.”

She gives him a look he’s rarely seen from her; a look that says she is trying to understand what he’s really saying. As if this joy of his was unexpected.

The water begins to boil, and M busies herself with the tea preparations. He watches every movement she makes, burning it into his memory, lest this be the last time he sees her. They might move her once they know he’s found her. He’ll understand the need, but it won’t hurt any less.

When he takes his tea from her, he allows his touch to linger against her skin, and she gives him that look again. But she shakes it off and sits down with her tea.

She asks him about the details of his fight against Spectre. She probably already knows some, but she listens patiently. He wonders if she was behind the scenes of the situation, watching over him like she used to, but he doesn’t think she’ll be forthcoming with much of that information.

He wants to know everything she’s been doing, and he tells her so. She is surprised. Their relationship has always been that of a boss and an employee. And as an employee, he wasn’t really the one she would talk to.

But she humors him and tells him the places she’s lived and how she’s been doing things that retired people do and that she’s found herself oddly content. When she finishes speaking, she’s studying him again and James wonders how much of what he is thinking is showing on his face because he really just wants to share in her contentment. Not because retirement ever sounded remotely appealing, but because it would be with her.

She breaks eye contact as she takes a deep breath.

“M tells me you have someone in your life,” she says.

And just like that, reality comes crashing back in and Madeleine stands between them like a wall.

James slumps back in his chair at the thought that, after this, he will have to return to that life. It isn’t a terrible life, but, now that his M is alive, it has suddenly been drained of all appeal.

They sit silently for a while. Both now knowing what is inevitable, though she has probably known it since they were in the park together.

“I can’t,” he says.

“Can’t what,” she asks.

James knows she already has the answer but wants it from him.

“I can’t go back, I can’t leave you,” he says.

To his surprise, she smiles at him.

“I know,” she says and now he smiles at her because he thinks she might want the same.

Then he shakes his head, realizing that she has responsibilities and an oath to keep that he no longer has. MI6 will move her, she is just acknowledging his feelings.

“Do you understand what you’d have to do?” she asks, and there is an uncharacteristic hesitation in her voice that makes him look up into her face, which is now not so sure.

“You would let me?”

He’ll feel a fool one day for how desperate he sounds, but it doesn’t matter now.

She smiles again and nods.

He is up out of his chair and on his knees before her in a heartbeat.

“Please,” he says. “I am so tired of living without you.”

She reaches up and pushes her fingers through his hair. That act makes a heat pulse through James body like nothing he’s ever known before.

Now she is really surprised. Even more so when he places his hands on her knees and looks up at her with a question for permission on his face. She nods slightly, a disbelieving look on her face, and he pushes her legs slightly apart and shuffles forward on his knees. His hands slide up her legs to her hips and he leans in to kiss her.

**Author's Note:**

> I don't know if there is more to this story, or not. For now, this is it.


End file.
